


Finding Her Way

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: Children of War [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Gen, I just wanted Serena to have a pet snake, Post-Series, Speculation, this is what inspired this entire AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-08-12 05:11:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Serena keeps booklets from her therapist, Dr. Aki Izayoi, on her at all times, and she reads them over and over, trying to remind herself that there’s a reason behind her actions, and she’s not being difficult on purpose. She’s sick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Her Way

**Author's Note:**

> Serena's snake: http://rainbow-galaxy-supernova.tumblr.com/post/149747941281/fic-reference

It’s been two months since Serena moved into the Hiiragi household. After the first few days in her first real home, Serena decided she never wanted to go back to the fusion dimension again. She started therapy a week later, where she was diagnosed with severe PTSD manifested through anxiety and hallucinations, and she’s also been tentatively diagnosed with a personality disorder. Serena keeps booklets from her therapist, Dr. Aki Izayoi, on her at all times, and she reads them over and over, trying to remind herself that there’s a reason behind her actions, and she’s not being difficult on purpose. She’s sick.

“We just don’t think that Serena is a good fit for the school.”

Serena slumps down in the hard wooden chair, her knuckles stinging from where she socked a boy in the jaw an hour ago. This is the third school she’s been expelled from.

“You’ve barely given her a chance!” Shuzo cries. “I told you when she enrolled here, she has PTSD! I said it would be an adjustment, I said she needed help! You promised me that it wouldn’t be an issue!”

The vice principal gives Serena a pitying look. “I know, but sir you have to understand, she’s physically assaulted at least one student every day.”

Serena scowls. She threw a few punches, it’s a big step from trapping people’s souls inside cards. Besides, they all deserved it. But Serena knows well enough now that she can’t say those sorts of things out loud.

Shuzo starts telling the vice principal that Serena comes from a world where her life was on the line each time she met a stranger, that she’s in therapy, and that she’s working on controlling herself. Finally Shuzo sees that he’s not getting anywhere, and he throws up his hands.

“Forget it,” he snaps. “You know what, you’re not expelling Serena. She’s dropping out.”

“I am?” Serena asks.

“You are,” Shuzo says firmly. He raises his voice. “Clearly this school has exaggerated their reputation for caring about its students. Clearly they are not willing to go the extra mile to make people feel welcome, and they are not worthy of your presence, Serena.”

“And the uniform sucks,” Serena says.

“AND THE UNIFORM SUCKS!” Shuzo bellows. He stands up and says haughtily, “Let’s go home.”

Serena follows Shuzo out of the office, and at the doorway they both turn around and stick their tongues out at the vice principal.

In the car, Shuzo asks, “What happened?”

Serena hugs her book bag to her chest. “He saw me scratching my ear. He came up behind me and flicked it. So I punched him.”

Shuzo grips the steering wheel tightly. “I should have him sued for laying his hands on you,” He says.

Serena sighs. “What’s the point? It’s not like I need the money.”

“No, but it’s the principle of the thing,” Shuzo says.

If there’s one good thing that Serena can find in all of this, it’s how supportive Shuzo is. He never yells at her for fighting, or acts remotely disappointed in her, even though Serena has spent a grand total of fifteen days in school since she was first enrolled in one five weeks ago. The Akaba family has personally submitted Serena’s applications to each school, and Shuzo met with staff from each one and told them that Serena didn’t take well to being touched by strangers, or being in rooms with closed doors, and she would go into fight-or-flight mode when she felt threatened.

And Serena has been threatened. The boy who flicked her ear, the girls who surrounded her to ask why she got to skip gym, the rumors that spread about her scars and bruises, the people who got in her face to interrogate her about why she had no last name, why she was in such an elite private school, and why the Akaba name was attached to her if she kept insisting she wasn’t part of the Akaba family. And when she throws a punch once, it’s like suddenly everyone wants to provoke her into punching again, so they can talk behind her back even more about what a mess she is. She’s used to children being cruel, but she’s also used to teachers who encouraged her to respond with her fists when she was overwhelmed.

Back at the Hiiragi house, Serena goes to Yuzu’s room—rather, the room that was Yuzu’s but is now shared between her and Serena—and changes her clothes. She owns very few outfits, since shopping has not been high on her list of things to do, and besides she thinks it doesn’t make sense to shop when the clothes she buys will likely go into boxes anyway. The Akaba family has given Shuzo a large amount of money so he can buy a bigger house to accommodate his foster children. They’ll be moving into the new house sometime next week.

Serena puts her uniform in a plastic bag and leaves it in the hallway, next to the two other uniforms she no longer needs. She’s not sure what she’ll do with them, maybe she’ll burn them, or give them to Yuri. For some reason he keeps asking her if she’s got any clothes she doesn’t want any more. Serena goes downstairs to the kitchen and takes a slice of pizza from one of the many boxes stacked up inside the fridge. She eats it cold and then lays down on the sofa. She can hear Shuzo on the phone somewhere in the house, probably calling the Akaba’s to report on her most recent expulsion. She hopes they won’t find another school to send her to. Maybe she can get Dr. Aki to persuade the Akaba’s that school is doing her more harm than good, and she can be homeschooled by a computer program like Yuri.

Yuri’s the only one who got out of going to school, Yugo says it’s because he flat out said that he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t commit homicide, but Serena’s not sure if anyone besides Yugo really believed that. She thinks it’s because Yuri has had even less human contact than she has. Since Serena was one of the professor’s treasured students, she got special treatment for sure, but Yuri…Yuri was on a different level. He didn’t attend classes, and when he did it was usually to duel some poor unfortunate sap. Yuri and Serena had considered each other friends since they first met at Academia, but Serena had never touched Yuri, never been close enough to him to attempt it. She’s not sure Yuri’s been touched by anything besides a closed fist in a while. She can’t imagine that Yuri is remotely prepared to be part of school life.

Sora, Yugo, Rin, Ruri, and Shun aren’t having problems adjusting to normal school life, at least not the way Serena is. But in most of those cases, this isn’t their first time attending a normal school. Even Rin and Yugo, who attended poorly run schools, had teachers who truly cared for them and never encouraged fighting among students. Serena does know that Yuto is having a hard time despite his time in Heartland’s spade branch; he hasn’t been expelled but he has been suspended. Serena assumes that his problems stem from the several months he spent without a physical body.

Serena falls asleep with those thoughts spinning in her mind, and she ends up dreaming that Ruri is trying to teach her how to act normal, but halfway through the lesson blood starts gushing from Serena’s ear. Eventually Serena wakes up when she hears the front door close and Yuzu shouts, “We’re home!”

Yuzu is probably the one person who could scream in Serena’s face and not make her flip out, so the shout barely makes Serena jump. She rolls onto her stomach and puts her arms over her head, ready to zonk out again.

“Serena! What are you doing home so early?” Yuzu asks.

Serena groans in response.

“No way,” Shun says, “You got expelled again?”

Serena lifts her head and nods. “Dude flicked my bad ear. I sucker punched ‘im.”

Shun looks astounded, and he gives her a high five as he passes. If it weren’t for Ruri being by Shun’s side to calm him down, Serena is sure he’d be in the same boat as her, expelled from three schools.

Yuzu sits next to Serena and puts her hand on Serena’s back. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe you ought to consider getting a therapy animal.”

That’s something Serena wasn’t expecting. She rolls on to her side and looks up at Yuzu. “How will that help?”

“Well, maybe people will think twice about coming near you to hurt you,” Yuzu says. “Maybe you’ll feel more secure if you have something between you and everyone else. And maybe it’ll be nice to have something that loves you unconditionally.”

“Hmm…” Serena says, folding her arms over her chest.

Rin leans over Serena. “You should try smiling when you think. All that frowning will give you wrinkles.”

“Good,” Serena says. “Let the world know that I am constantly annoyed by its bullshit.”

“Right on,” Shun says.

Shuzo comes into the room and Yuzu tells her father about her idea for Serena to have a therapy animal. Shuzo’s face brightens.

“That’s a great idea, Yuzu! Why I can’t believe we didn’t think of it sooner! Serena, bring it up next time you’re in therapy, the sooner we get this squared away and the sooner you get an animal—” Shuzo pauses. “Um, what kind of pet would you like?”

Serena draws a blank. “I don’t know.”

So Yuzu takes Serena up to her room and sets her up with a laptop. She tells Serena to browse pet websites and look up videos of domesticated animals, and decide which one she likes best.

“If I can even find one I like,” Serena calls as Yuzu leaves the room.

 

When Yuzu suggested Serena get a therapy animal, she was picturing a dog, or a cat, heck maybe even a rabbit. When Yuzu goes to her room to check on Serena, she finds her hunched over the laptop, her hands over her mouth, and tears on her cheeks.

“Oh my god, are you alright?!” Yuzu cries, rushing to Serena’s side.

Serena takes her hands away from her mouth and wails, “They’re so cute!”

Yuzu looks at the laptop. Serena is…watching a video of a snake.

“Snakes?” Yuzu asks. “This is about a snake?”

Serena flaps her hands at the screen. “Look at—look at its little face!” She cries, “Look at its mouth, it looks like its smiling! It’s so chubby and happy and oh Yuzu, I _want_ one!”

Yuzu stares at the screen. She doesn’t have a problem with snakes, neither does her dad, but she knows that they are a lot of work, perhaps more than a dog or cat.

“Okay,” Yuzu says. “Have you read up on what they need?”

Serena nods and grabs a notebook from her lap. “I wrote it all down, what temperature and humidity they need, I can totally manage all of that, it’s not half as bad as what Yuri’s plants needed and I had to take care of those things when he went off on the Professor’s orders. And I know what enclosures are best for them, what they should have in their cage, or tub, a plastic tub will hold humidity best, and this kind of snake, ball pythons, they don’t even need that much space, they really don’t grow to be that big. I know they need to be fed dead rats but I mean, I eat dead animals all the time so it doesn’t bother me, and I’ll only feed him when nobody is around to be squicked out by it!”

“Whoa, whoa, easy now,” Yuzu says, patting Serena’s shoulder. “Let’s go talk to my dad about this.”

Serena grabs the computer and her notebook and runs from the room, screaming, “Mister Hiiragi, Shuzo! Can I have a snake, please please please please?”

Yuzu has to laugh. She’s never seen Serena this excited about something before, and she’s happy for her.

 

As soon as Serena gets permission to own a snake, she starts preparing to own one. She visits all kinds of specialty pet stores to buy supplies, and she finds out about online groups dedicated to snake breeders and people looking to own the snakes they breed. And in therapy, she discusses the possibility of registering her snake as an emotional support animal.

“I’m not even sure that’s possible,” Dr. Aki says.

“I know I can’t have it with me all the time,” Serena says, “And I know it would be bad to keep it out of the cage for an entire school day for sure, but can’t you try? So that I can take it with me if I ever go anywhere, like a hotel or anything like that?”

Aki smiles and says, “Okay, I’ll make some calls and see what I can do to get your snake registered. Have you found one that you like yet?”

Serena shakes her head. “But I’m talking with a breeder who says he’s got something called a banana lavender morph? He says the snakes look like moonlight.”

And a few days later, Serena video calls the breeder so she can see his snakes. Yuzu stays with her during the call, and they both gasp as the breeder holds up a foot-long, five-month old ball python.

“What do you think?” He asks, showing the snake from various angles. “Beautiful isn’t he? You did say you wanted a male, yes?”

Serena nods.

“Good choice,” the breeder tells her. “Males tend to be smaller and more docile. Now this little guy is well-versed in eating, takes his food with no problem, and he’s already had a shed.” He seems ready to say more, but Serena cuts him off.

“He’s beautiful!” She wails.

The guy seems a bit startled by her outburst. “Are you okay?”

Yuzu takes the phone from Serena and holds it steady. “Don’t worry about her,” she says as Serena starts crying, “She just really, really likes snakes.”

“I’ll take him!” Serena yells, “Just name your price, I don’t care, I want him!”

So the pair of them exchange payment information, and when Serena hangs up the phone she bounces around the house screaming, “He’s the most beautiful snake I’ve ever seen in my life and he’s mine! He’s mine!”

 

Shuzo unlocks the front door to the new house and holds out his arms. “Teenagers first!”

Yuzu and Rin dash inside and let out squeals of delight. Ruri and Shun enter slowly, looking around at everything, and Serena can barely see the house around the plastic tub in her arms. Her snake has not arrived yet, but she wants to set up for it as soon as possible so she can get the temperature and humidity stable.

But Serena does take time to admire the house. It’s got a huge living room and an open kitchen that looks right into the living room. The two rooms are separated by a long table that Shuzo calls a breakfast bar. There’s enough room for three chairs on either side of the bar, and just behind the living room is a proper dining room. The first floor also has two bathrooms and two bedrooms.

“One for me and one for Shun,” Shuzo says, admiring the bedrooms. “And the girl’s rooms are upstairs.”

“Race you!” Yuzu cries, dashing up the stairs.

Serena forgoes the race and takes her snake habitat upstairs. There’s a long hallway with three doors on each side—two for bedrooms, one for a bathroom, and each bathroom has access from the hallway and the bedroom. Rin and Ruri are playing rock-paper-scissors over one of the rooms, and Yuzu has already called the first room on the right side of the hall. Serena slips past Rin and Ruri and into the second room on the right side of the hall. It’s a good sized room, with two windows and lots of electrical outlets. There will be plenty of space for her snake once he arrives.

“So, you’re my roommate!” Yuzu says, poking her head into Serena’s room via the bathroom.

Serena eyes the bathroom door that leads to her room. “I can see that being a problem at 3 AM when I need to pee at the same time as you.”

“Like you won’t notice the light is on?” Yuzu asks. “Besides I have a feeling you’ll end up in my room anyway.”

Serena feels her face heat up. It’s true, she’s been sharing Yuzu’s bed for so long that she’s not sure she knows how to sleep by herself.

“And that is perfectly fine with me,” Yuzu adds, giving Serena a gentle smile. “I really don’t mind it.”

Serena returns the smile. Yuzu opens her mouth, but Shuzo calls up the stairs, “Come help with the stuff, kiddos! We gotta empty the moving van by sunset!”

“Better get a move on,” Serena says. She’s got a feeling that the heat lamp she bought was one of the first things to go in the truck, which means it’s going to take a while for her to dig it out.

Once all the boxes are piled into the living room, the sorting begins. Plates and cutlery to the kitchen, clothes to the bedrooms, towels to the bathroom closets. It’s tedious, but it’s kind of fun. Shuzo entertains the kids by singing at the top of his voice, or reciting old movie scripts from memory, with Yuzu either joining him or screaming that he’s embarrassing her. Serena can’t remember the last time she enjoyed herself so much, and the sentiment seems to be felt by all. Even Shun is smiling, something Ruri eagerly calls him out on.

“You know what?” Rin asks, looking up from the curtains she’s unfolding, “This feels like something a family would do. Are we a family, even though we’re not adopted?”

Shuzo throws out his arms. “Of course we’re family! It’s not dictated by blood, or titles, or a piece of paper, however nice that piece of paper may be. And if you kids ever want to be adopted, I’ll do it in a heartbeat, but you don’t need that title to be family. Just like you kids don’t have to think of me as your dad, or each other as sisters and brother. Family is felt in your heart.”

Serena surreptitiously wipes her eyes. If all that’s true, then she’s got a family.

 

The new house is about the same distance from the Sakaki house as the old one was, so Serena has no trouble walking to see Yuri. She carries with her the bag of her old uniforms, and once outside the house she texts Yuri to let him know she’s arrived.

“Construction seems to be going well,” Serena says as Yuri walks out to meet her, peering up at the soon-to-be third floor of the Sakaki house. They had elected to build on rather than move, and it all had to do with the foundation of the house or something, Serena didn’t bother to remember the specifics.

“It’s taking forever,” Yuri says, leaning against the front gate.

“Hasn’t it been two weeks?” Serena asks. The construction started around the same time that she and the rest of her foster family moved.

“What did you bring me?”

Serena holds out the bag. Yuri looks inside and his eyes widen. “Jeez, you sure you don’t want them back?”

“You can keep ‘em,” Serena sniffs. “I’m never going back to those schools again. And I don’t want them back if you’re gonna wear ‘em.”

“I am not!” Yuri cries. “I’m—” He cuts off and stares at Serena with narrowed eyes. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“I promise nothing,” Serena says.

Yuri sighs. “Yoko is teaching me how to sew. I’m making outfits for the dogs.”

Serena’s jaw drops. She can think of nothing to say other than, “I never pegged you for a dog person.”

“I’m not sure I am,” Yuri says. “But for some reason this little corgi dog loves me. His name is En, and there’s a cat named Core, so they’re Encore. Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Serena rolls back her sleeve and holds up her arm. “Think you can make a cape for Peri?”

Yuri takes a large step back, staring at Serena’s wrist in horror. “You have a snake on your arm,” he says.

Serena grins, petting her snake’s head. “Isn’t he just gorgeous? His full name is Hyperion, but I call him Peri for short. He’s five months old, five and a half now, and he’s the sweetest little thing ever! He’s so happy to just hang out on my arm, or around my shoulders, and he comes to me whenever I put my hand in his tub.”

“I have to go,” Yuri says. He scrambles back to the house.

Serena laughs as she walks away. “Looks like we’ve got to work on Yuri.”

Peri flicks his tongue out and looks at Serena curiously.

“Of course you’ll see him again,” Serena says, “He’s family, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> :D


End file.
